100 Favorite Dishes: No. 31, Tacos de Cabeza y Orejas at El Ultimo

​This year leading up to our annual Best of Houston issue, we're counting down our 100 favorite dishes in Houston. This list comprises our favorite dishes from the last year, dishes that are essential to Houston's cultural landscape and/or dishes that any visitor (or resident) should try at least once.

I'm not alone in my love of El Ultimo, which I often consider my favorite taco truck in town (it shares space with El Tacambaro, behind the market on Airline, but El Ultimo's friendly service usually pushes it over the top). Robb Walsh named the truck his third favorite in the city, and put its breakfast tacos on his own 100 Favorites list last year.

The truck moves around, but is usually planted at the intersection of Antoine and Long Point. (That's it above, for sake of reference.) As with any good old taco truck, it only accepts cash and you'll mostly have to place your order in Spanish. On busy days, El Ultimo has a waitress who takes orders from people standing in line and relays them to the men cooking inside.

El Ultimo deals in more than just your standard barbacoa and chicharron tacos, though. And you get a lot more than just a sprinkle of cilantro and raw onions on your order. Here, your tacos are topped with a handful of queso fresco that quickly melts into the hot meat, as well as a mess of caramelized onions. You'll get your chopped cilantro, to be sure, but you'll also get a few buttery hunks of avocado on top along with everything else. They're majestic tacos, towering high and requiring nothing other than a squeeze of lime juice on top.

My favorite meats to put in the fluffy flour tortillas -- yes, this is the one taco truck where I'll recommend the flour tortillas -- are the cabeza and orejas. Cabeza is exactly what it sounds like: fatty meat scraped from the head of the cow, much like barbacoa. And orejas are slices of pig ears, a delicacy any fan of Chinese food will be familiar with. Ordering both presents a brilliant textural contrast: soft, decadently greasy cabeza and chewy, tripe-like orejas. You might never go back to a "regular" taco again.

If you like this story, consider signing up for our email newsletters.